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Home  »  Specimens of American Poetry  »  Solyman Brown (1790–1876)

Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.

By Lady Byron to Her Husband

Solyman Brown (1790–1876)

FARE thee well, inconstant lover!

If thy fickle flame was love;—

Though our transient joys are over,

I can ne’er inconstant prove.

Man may boast a deathless passion,

Swear his love shall ne’er decline;

Yet, unfix’d as changing fashion,

Woman’s fate may change like mine!

Once I thought I might believe thee;

Might on Byron’s oath rely;

But my arms do scarce receive thee

Ere thy oaths, unheeded, die.

From paternal arms you took me,

Stole me from a mother’s care;

Then in wantonness forsook me

For a less admiring fair.

Prayers and tears were unavailing,

Nought thy purpose could beguile;

Not a wife, her woes bewailing,

Nor a lovely infant’s smile.

Heaven had form’d thee for unkindness,

Steel’d thy soul to all that ’s mild;

Dimm’d thy moral sight with blindness,

Left thee Nature’s wayward child.

Stay! I must not—cannot chide thee;

What thou hast not, who can blame?

Virtue is what heaven denied thee,

And the world has done the same.

Think not I can e’er forget thee;

No, thy griefs will all be mine;

I shall weep when foes beset thee,

Smile when fortune’s sun shall shine.

Must I—can I—shall a mother

Hate the father of her child?

Gracious Heaven! my anguish smother,—

At that name, my infant smiled!

Smiled to think she had a father

To protect her growing years;—

Unsuspecting orphan, rather

Drown thine eye in floods of tears!

Father, now, sweet babe, thou hast not;

All his care you must forego;

Other woes thy peace may blast not,

Yet thou hast this keenest wo!

Orphan babe! my care shall ever

Guard thee from the ills of life;

Death alone hath power to sever

Byron’s babe and constant wife!